Focus Groups

A new set of techniques for use in focus group research has been developed. Whilst these techniques are easy to learn, they offer powerful new tools for qualitative research. At the basic level, using Post-It Notes as a medium of communication between group members, they remove much of the specialist skill needed for running focus groups; in essence the groups manage themselves! Further, the inherent structuring (albeit by the participants themselves) makes development of intricate ideas easier to stimulate and - in particular - investigation of complex relationships much easier to follow. Even the results are recorded by the participants. At the more sophisticated level, use of larger numbers of participants can help (large) organizations anticipate radical changes (wild cards) in their markets.

In general, research projects should be seen as having a characteristic shape (Mercer, 1997):

In broad terms the horizontal dimension, here, indicates the passing of time as the project progresses, and the vertical one the number of people involved at each stage.

The main message which emerges is that the more obvious elements where you might expect time to be taken, especially those involved in the seemingly complex and relatively lengthy process of data collection, typically only represent a minor part of the overall timescale. If the research is to be fully productive then, the period at the beginning when it is designed and piloted must be allowed to progress at its own pace. This is why focus group research, the most frequently used form of qualitative research, is so important.

There are variations in the detailed way that focus groups are run currently, and in the way that the results may be analyzed; but there have been few radical developments in the basic technique for decades. In essence, as normally run, the session itself revolves around a group of six to eight participants who, typically seated in a circle, discuss amongst themselves the issues to be investigated (Goldman & McDonald, 1987). The key element is the expertise of the ‘moderator’; it is often recommended that a psychologist is necessary for this role (Bellenger et al, 1976). Even so, the moderator is supposed only to guide discussion, not to lead it, a counsel of perfection which may be hard to achieve. Recording of the outcomes, by the moderator, is usually supported by tape recording (or even video); but again the expertise of the analyst (usually also the moderator) is crucial.

The new approach, described here, radically changes the process so that the participants, themselves, are more in control of the session; and the main ‘documentation’ emerges directly from their deliberations. It was developed in response to the need to manage focus groups as part of a scenario forecasting process. It has been tested, to date, with 17 such ‘self-managed’ focus groups.

Thus, the simple technique we have come to recommend (Mercer, 1995 & 1996) for general usage by our focus groups is based on the now almost universal availability of Post-It Notes. It is a very simple technique, since it requires only a conference room with a bare wall and copious supplies of 3M Post-It-Notes.

In this way, the six to eight people taking part in each group - in much the same way as in a normal focus group - meet in the conference room, isolated from outside interruptions. At the start of the session, in order to avoid undue bias, the participants are deliberately given a very short briefing, with the bare minimum of information; whilst standing - the first major difference - in front of the bare wall they are going to use. In essence, apart from introducing the basic principles of using Post-It-Notes as the vehicle for discussion (and record), only the basic question - which is the starting point, is introduced. In the case of our own work, with 17 such groups (containing 140 participants, in total, from a wide range of organizations) we said little more than "We want you to describe the future of the world in thirty years time." In practice this proved quite sufficient for our participants to then engage in free-form debate. Most groups were producing a flow of relevant ideas within five minutes and none took more than ten minutes to become fully involved in the debate.

The issues they then identify, the 'drivers' for global change in the case of our own groups, are written, with a thick magic marker so they can be read from a distance, on separate Post-It Notes. These Post-It Notes are, at least in theory, randomly placed on the wall. In practice, we have found that even at this early stage participants want to cluster them in groups - another difference - which seem to make sense. The only requirement - which is why Post-It Notes are ideal for this approach - is that there is no bar to taking them off again and moving them to a new cluster. Thus, the first major difference from conventional focus groups is that this new approach forces a degree of structure on the participants. On the other hand, this structure is determined by them - and usually proves to offer a valuable insight into the underlying relationships.

As in any form of brainstorming, to which the process is also related, the initial ideas typically stimulate others. It is, indeed, important that everyone is positively encouraged to add their own Post-It Notes to those on the wall. This is a second difference, in that the quietest members of the group can, and do, participate without intervention by the moderator. The role of the moderator is much less problematic; and the skills needed are also less critical. The participants only have to add a note to the wall, which most people seem to find easier than entering into a conversation!

The result is a very powerful form of creative interaction within the group, which is applicable to a wide range of situations (but is especially powerful in the context of focus groups). In view of the short time available for such groups to work together, it also offers a very obvious context for those who are coming to the process for the first time. Since the workings are largely self-evident, participants very quickly come to understand exactly what is involved.

As the initial flow of ideas slows down, participants can easily be introduced to the next stage, with rather more ease than in a traditional focus group, though many of the groups may well move on of their own volition. The key fact is that the moderator can progress the group through the stages of the research especially easily; and without undue intervention; again requiring less skill. In addition, as the record of the previous discussions is retained - on the wall - the participants rarely need to be reminded of where they have been.

One aspect which is much more difficult to achieve with conventional focus groups, is to ask the participants to develop the relationships between the various factors - something which may be particularly important, say, for work leading to cluster analysis. In the case of our scenario groups, they were asked to try and arrange the drivers, which had emerged from the first stage, into groups which seemed to make sense to them, where the final aim of this stage was to lead into the creation of the 6 - 8 larger groupings; 'mini-scenarios'. This is where the Post-It Notes are almost essential - they will continue to stick no matter how many times they are moved around. While this clustering process is taking place the participants can continue to add new topics - and more Post-It Notes are added to the wall. In the opposite direction, the few unimportant ones can just as easily be removed by them removed (often then grouped, as an 'audit trail', on another wall).

As the clusters - in our case the 'mini-scenarios' - start to emerge, the associated Post-It Notes can be stuck to each other rather than individually to the wall; which made it easier to move whole clusters around. One great benefit of using Post-It Notes is that there is no bar to changing your mind. If you want to rearrange the groups - or simply to go back (iterate) to an earlier stage - then you strip them off and put them in their new position.

Needless to say, the highly visual nature of the patterns produced by the various arrangements of the Post-It-Notes is especially effective in stimulating investigation into the relationships between them.

A final, major advantage of this new approach is that the main ‘documentation’ of the results is progressively accumulated as a natural part of the process - in the form of the Post-It-Notes adhering to the wall - by the participants themselves. It is they who decide, in this way, what they want to say; and this requires no immediate interpretation. The process may be tape-recorded, or a video made, but the prime record is the notes on the wall - which may then be most easily photographed to form a permanent record. Following the same line of argument, the analysis, at least at the first level, has already been started by the participants - in terms of their own clusters and patterns.

So far, the technique(s) described have been assumed to be those applying to just one group of eight participants. We have, though, aggregated the results produced by a number of such groups. This is sometimes the case in marketing research where a variety of sub-groups have been identified. In our case, however, the requirement for significant numbers of participants, even - unusually - at this qualitative stage of the overall research, is generated by the need to ensure that all the significant drivers (the dimensions to be quantified in subsequent stages) have been identified. As, unusually, there may be more than a hundred such drivers to be identified in our own work, if the research is to be genuinely to be ‘global’, it has been necessary to run ten or more groups, so that multiple occurrences of each of these significant drivers may be observed. Otherwise, we cannot be confident that the single occurrences (emerging from a smaller number of groups) may not just represent one individual’s idiosyncrasies. In more conventional marketing research, where only a handful of factors are to be identified, the number of participants needed may be less; though it is still unlikely that the views of just eight individuals will suffice to give the degree of confidence which most research will demand. In any case, the problem may be resolved at the quantitative stage, but it could waste respondent’s time and - worse - annoy them, by the questionnaire’s apparent triviality, to such an extent that this distorts the results. Above all, though, the more participants recruited to the process the more confident that researchers, and the ‘customers’ for their work, will feel that all the significant drivers have been identified.

On the other hand, one group of factors which has traditionally caused problems for researchers (Rockfellow, 1994) are those ‘wild cards’ which surprise everyone. According to strict theory, these ‘wild cards’ must be unpredictable (or at least of low predictability) as well as of high impact; and, hence, these might cause problems even for those using the techniques described here. There is, though, one important sub-category of such wild cards, those involving slow hidden processes, which are present over long periods but suddenly emerge (as ‘creeping catastrophes’ - Steinmuller, 1996). One unexpected outcome of the new approach is that this category - which accounts for a large proportion of wild cards overall - may be detected by the technique(s) described here; as long as sufficient numbers of participants are involved. Essentially, in this context, researchers should look for two or more occurrences which surprise them; the opposite extreme to the more normal focus group process of reduction to the key factors. They need two such occurrences because it is almost certain that otherwise they will reject the factor as unbelievable!

Clearly, the more participants the greater the chance of two such occurrences emerging. Indeed, it is unlikely that they will emerge from less than ten or twenty groups (comparable with the number we, ourselves, completed). As a result, this is an approach more suited to larger organizations, with their larger budgets. If you can afford it, though, it does at last offer the possibility of identifying the radical shifts about to take place in markets, which are not identified by more conventional research which tracks incremental changes. In this way, self-documenting focus groups, used with relatively large numbers of participants, may offer an especially valuable new tool for exploring our rapidly changing business environments.

As these wild card factors are - almost be definition - unbelievable for most respondents, it is much more difficult to incorporate these in the subsequent quantification stages. On the other hand, once they have been identified, these ‘creeping catastrophes’ typically become certain factors; not needing further research.

This is a remarkably easy set of techniques to use. The relative shortness of this paper, considering the scope of the ideas it contains, indicates the ease with which they may be learned. As such, at the basic level, they remove much of the specialist skill needed for running focus groups; in essence the groups manage themselves! Further, the inherent structuring (albeit by the participants themselves) makes development of intricate ideas easier to stimulate and - in particular - investigation of complex relationships much easier to follow. Even the results are recorded by the participants.

At the more sophisticated level, use of larger numbers of participants can help (large) organizations anticipate radical changes (wild cards) in their markets.

Bellenger, D N, K L Bernhardt & J L Goldstucker , (1976), Qualitative Research in Marketing, American Marketing Association

Goldman, A E & Susan McDonald (1987), The Group Depth Interview: Principles and Practice, Prentice Hall

Mercer, D. (1996), “A New Qualitative Research Technique for Exploring the Future, Marketing Education Group (MEG) Conference, July

Rockfellow, John D, (1994), Wild Cards: Preparing for the Big One, The Futurist, Jan-Feb.

Steinmuller, K (1996), The Future as a Wild Card, 5. International Sommerkademie des Secretariats für Zukunftsforschung

[1] Open University Business School, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA

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